Good morning and Happy Monday! How was your weekend? Mine was spent relaxing and recuperating. The most productive thing I did for two days (other than producing Saturday’s blog post) was to get my hair cut (which was sorely needed).

The good news is that I feel good! Yay for antibiotics! Better living through pharmacology – that’s my motto. “Pharmacology”. Now, there’s a good word. It rolls off the tongue and when used in a sentence makes the speaker or writer seem intelligent. I’m all for that.

I love words. I am a self-professed word-nerd. My linguistic obsession predates my desire to write them down in collected patterns sometimes referred to as a novel, since I’ve been reading a lot longer than I’ve been writing.

I used to have these magnets on my fridge – I took them down in favor of Gerard Butler.

I like learning new words and I have no objection to looking one up if I run across a word I don’t know. I subscribe to Dictionary.com’s word-of-the-day and I have a calendar on my desk here in my office. I also like to insert these new words into conversation, though I have been accused of lexiphanicism*.

What I find really fascinating is how some words fall in and out of favor. I’m not talking about the pop-culture words or phrases that both the Oxford English and Merriam-Webster dictionaries add every year. I mean the now archaic words that sites like Grandiloquent Word of the Day unearth for our amusement.

For instance, one recent entry was “flapdoodle”, which means “words or ideas that are foolish and untrue”. Now, why on earth would we ever stop using that one? It’s fun to say and lord knows there has never been a shortage of such a thing in the history of mankind. I say we bring it back. Your mission is to insert flapdoodle into every conversation in which it’s relevant, from now on. It worked for kerfuffle!

Kerfuffle, a noun meaning disorder, commotion or agitation, is a word, popular in the 1940s and 50s, that had fallen by the wayside, except by Brits. In recent years it’s made a comeback. We here at SS&S use it all the time, but I also see it in print and even heard it used on the national news not too long ago.

Another of our favorites is swivet (a state of nervous excitement, haste, or anxiety; flutter). If I didn’t know what it meant, I might think it was a small malodorous animal related to the skunk. (Don’t ask me why, that’s just what I picture.) Thesaurus.com doesn’t even recognize this word! It can be parsed out and one can find synonyms for all of its pieces, but why would you want to use any of them when there’s one great word that encapsulates them all?

My point is, there are millions of words in the English language alone (although they all have roots in other languages), so why not mix it up a little? Why should we keep using the same ones over and over again? Have some fun. There are a lot of choices on the Cheesecake Factory menu, but if you ate there every night, you would eventually get tired of it, right?

gratuitous picture of cheesecake

Four years ago, Buzzfeed compiled this list of obsolete words that they believe we should endeavor to bring back. This is a good place to start:

1.Groak

Meaning: To silently watch someone while they are eating, hoping to be invited to join them.
Origin: Unknown
As in: It’s hard to enjoy your meal when the guy opposite is groaking you the whole time.

Hugger-mugger

Meaning: To act in a secretive manner.
Origin: 1530s
As in: I’m sick of all these sneaky types, creeping around and hugger-muggering the whole time.

3. Crapulous

Meaning: To feel ill because of excessive eating/drinking.
Origin: 1530s
As in: Blerg. The morning after St. Patrick’s Day. I feel crapulous.

4. Grumpish

Meaning: Sullen. An alternative to grumpy.
Origin: 1720s
As in: I’m hungover, and I’ve got a ton of work to do. Think I’m allowed to be grumpish.

Snowbroth

Meaning: Freshly melted snow.
Origin: 1590s
As in: Yesterday we woke up to a perfect carpet of white, but now it’s just snowbroth.

So, how do you feel about all of this? Anyone else consider themselves to be a “word collector”? Do you have a favorite seldom-heard word that you like to slip into conversation or writing?

In any case, I hope you have a ripping week!

*-The use of excessively learned and bombastic vocabulary or phraseology in a pretentious and showy fashion. -An instance or example of such vocabulary or phraseology. -The habit of using a pompous or turgid style in speaking or writing. -The use of pretentious words, language, or style.

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Ha! ‘Groak’ (having 3 dogs I am very familiar with that look!) I came across this same site a while ago (see my post June 17 last) and we at work had a huge amount of fun with it (spent a lot of time bibbling and brabbling, and, in one case, incessantly curmuring . . . ) Fabulous words all and such a shame many of them have slipped out of fashion (although perhaps some have only been shortened? ‘Crapulous’ immediately springs to mind . . .) 🙂